February 27, 2012

Pattern Review: Wee Mouse Tin House

We have continued to have a really busy week and weekend. But Sweet Pea and I took a little time out this weekend to work on a project together. I love Larissa Holland's work. She blogs at mmmcrafts and writes some pretty amazing patterns. I blogged about her cell phone caddy pattern here and the Binky Bunny pattern here. I think I have all of her patterns. She recently came out with a new pattern called Wee Mouse Tin House (click the name to go to the pattern), and I just flipped over it. I knew Sweet Pea would adore it, so I bought the pattern. When she saw it, Sweet Pea said, "Can we make it this weekend?" She was so excited. So, we sat down and made it together. Sweet Pea wanted to help every step of the way.

Here is what we made....A little mouse that sleeps in an Altoids tin with its little teddy bear and pillow. Okay, everyone together now...."Awwwww!" Is this cute, or what?! It was such a fun project, and Sweet Pea and I created it in about a couple of hours. If you are afraid of miniature stuff like this, don't be. Even Sweet Pea could help with lots of the parts, because Larissa writes such a good pattern and makes things pretty easy with her construction techniques.

The pattern calls for corduroy or flannel for the mouse. Well, I didn't have any on hand, but I did have fleece. So, that's what we used, and it worked out swell. I had a bunch of wool felt laying around for other projects, and I just let Sweet Pea choose what she wanted for the mattress, blanket, and teddy bear. I told her she could pick from my scraps for the pillow fabric. But she said, "Can I pick from my fat quarter stash? I like my fabrics better." LOL! Of course, I said, "Sure!" This project does not take much fabric...all the pieces are pretty small. So, it was easy to clip a bit off wool felt in my stash. (Although when Sweet Pea cut the red blanket out, she cut it right from the middle of a big, red piece of felt. LOL. We talked a little about where to cut things from to conserve our resources. It was pretty funny.)

See the pink mouse's tail? I was even able to do all the embroidery with floss I had laying around, and it was quick and easy to do all the embroidery, too.

As I said, Sweet Pea really wanted to help me with every step of this that she could. Here she is sewing the arms and legs together. (We are using my small machine, because my big machine is in thie shop, and this one was set up. I didn't feel like hassling with her little machine....and since the sewing was so small, I wanted to use a machine I was more familiar with.) Anyway, Larissa's construction techniques on some of these tiny pieces really made it doable. The proof is right here....even a 7-year-old could sew the arms and legs, which are the smallest parts on this project!

Here she is tearing the paper off the arms and legs. She stitched on the lines on freezer paper for this step, which is what made it a little easier. I shortened the stitch length a little (to about 1.5) on these because (a) the smaller stitches would make it easier to maneuver around the little curves, and (b) it would make it easier to tear the paper off. This was good job for little fingers. As I said, we made the mouse's body out of fleece. I didn't have any white wool, either, so we made the arms and legs out of fleece, too. It worked out great, because there are exposed raw edges on these arms and legs, and the fleece won't fray.

Sweet Pea sat at my knee and stuffed the little mouse, too. (I did do all the embroidery on his face, though she threaded all the needles for me.) She also stuffed the pillow independently.

She did all the cutting on the felt pieces as well. She had to scratch up the metal on the tin for glueing herself, too. So, there were many, many things she could do to help with this project.

She loves Altoids, so the bonus was we had to eat a bunch of them to make this project. :-)

She said this was great because when we travel, she could take this as her little stuffed animal and that she would be unlikely to lose it if she kept everything in the tin.

I just think this is adorable and that any little girl would go nuts over it.

So, my review of this pattern is two very enthusiastic thumbs up! I will make this again. I was thinking that I have a niece with a birthday coming up. I bet she would love one of these, and think how easy it would be to mail this. Yes, this will be a go-to gift for me for a while now. And, like I said, I could make one in a couple of hours. Many thanks to Larissa for another wonderful pattern. I highly recommend this one as well. You can do this. It is not hard!

If you don't have a little girl or boy to make this for, maybe you want one for yourself. I have to admit, I do!

This is the GREATEST idea!! I luv the chocolate coated altoids and have lots of tins that I just can't throw away...they were waiting for a special use. Thank YOU for helping to find a great use for them!

That is so cute! I have to make some for my granddaughters and some kids in the neighborhood. I love Altoids and have many tins that I can't toss. I did see a tutorial last week on how to cover an Altoids tin. I like this idea better! I also collect International Coffee tins and wonder what I can do with them. Maybe SP will have an idea. She is so darn cute!

Hey, Stephanie. Can you please be my publicist? Wow! I am blown away by this post. I actually didn't know how easy it would be for a kid to help with this project, and now I know! I'm really impressed by your (beautiful) hands-on seven year old and what a great job she did, even with the tiny pieces. Also had to laugh about her having her own fabric stash already. Future craft blogger in the making. It's also helpful to know that fleece is a good substitute! Excellent, thorough review, and of course thanks so much for the double thumbs up!